Animal Masks

The twins’ preschool class is dressing up for farm animals. And of course we don’t have any farm animal costumes. Brendan really wanted to be a dog and Bailey wanted to be a piggy. After looking around on Pinterest, I figured the easiest costume would be a mask. These masks were very easy to make and I thought you all would enjoy easy instructions on making them too!

SUPPLIES //

+ felt sheets for each mask base color (2 for mask base color, then more for accent pieces)
+ thread in coordinating colors to your felt (if you want to sew them together)
+ fabric glue (can be found online or at any craft store); here’s the one I used.
+ craft paint for the details
+ 1/2″ to 1″ wide elastic (also found at craft or fabric stores)+ mask template

STEP 1 // Preparation

Download the mask template above and draw on animal ears if you need them. As you can see from the pictures, I made my dog mask and pig mask with ears long enough to fold over after I was done.

STEP 2 // Cutting Out

Pin the mask to your base felt color. If you have enough room you can fold one felt piece in half, if not, pin both felt pieces together with the mask template. Then cut out your mask base pieces.

I also went ahead and cut out the embellishment pieces I knew I wanted for each mask (noses, etc). *see pic below

You also need to cut the elastic to fit your child’s head. Measure around their head, then add 1/2″ to both ends – this will be the part that’s inserted to either side of the mask to hold the elastic in place.

STEP 3 // Getting Together

At this point you can either sew the two base pieces together, which is what I did because I like the finished look it gives, or you can just use your fabric glue and glue them together. Which ever way you decide to do it, make sure to pin or glue 1/2″ of the elastic into either side of the mask (see mask template above to see where to put the sides in) then sew or glue the mask pieces together.

STEP 4 // Embellish

After the mask base is completed, you can use some creativity to adding the details!

Using my fabric glue, I glued the ears in place and attached the nose piece. Then I used craft (acrylic) paint to add the little details like the pig’s nostrils and accents to the dog’s facial hair. I find this just makes the mask pop and is so cute!

One more thing I did to complete the kids’ costumes was to make them tails of course!

For the pig’s tail, I simply sewed (or you could glue one end) a pipe cleaner into the felt, then pulled it down to wrinkle it a little then sewed the second end into place.

I just used a safety pin to attach the tails from the inside of their pants.